Camp Cannibal

by Clay McLeod Chapman

  I nearly wet myself.

  “Have you gone mental?” Compass whined. “Klepto could’ve killed you!”

  Yardstick took a moment to collect himself. “Peashooter will kill you both if he finds out you took the prisoner from his cage.”

  Compass stared at Yardstick. “You’ve been awfully protective of the Rat lately.”

  “Your point?”

  “Seems like you’re looking out for him.”

  “I’m looking out for you,” Yardstick shot back.

  Compass took a few steps closer, getting right into ­Yardstick’s face. “Sporkboy told me how you busted up his fun the other day.”

  “Did he also mention Spencer saved his life?”

  “He must’ve skipped that part.”

  “Well, he did. Sporkboy would be fertilizing this field if it weren’t for him.”

  “You can’t keep an eye on the Rat all the time. If I were you, I’d try keeping an eye on myself for a change.”

  Yardstick didn’t flinch.

  Klepto broke the silence. “If you’re so worried about him, you put him back.”

  “Fine by me.” With a simple heave-ho, Yardstick lifted me off the ground and laid me over the length of his shoulders.

  “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” I whispered as he hefted me away.

  “Nobody should be treated that way. I don’t care whose tribe you’re in.”

  The sun had begun to set by the time Yardstick returned me to the amphitheater. He unlatched the lid on my cage and flipped it open.

  “Please—don’t put me back in there.”

  “I have to.” He plunked me into the cage before dropping the lid back down over my head.

  “Don’t leave,” I pleaded. “I can’t spend one more night stuck in this cage.”

  “It’s not time yet.” Yardstick pulled out a wadded napkin from his pocket and slipped it through the bars. “Eat this. It’s not much, but it’s something. I had to wait until everybody else ate and pick up whatever scraps were left.”

  I opened up the napkin and found a few yellowed pebbles. They looked like the droppings of some animal who’d eaten a lot of corn.

  “What’s that?”

  “Tempeh, maybe? I don’t know….Sporkboy ran out of hot dogs, so Peashooter’s implemented a ration.”

  I took a bite. The brittle soybean turd crumbled apart in my mouth. “So much for eating whatever you want, whenever you want.”

  Yardstick swapped my copy of Animal Farm with another book through the bars when nobody was looking.

  The Call of the Wild.

  “I’ve already read this one.”

  “You should re-read it.”

  “Says who?”

  “A mutual friend,” he whispered, then left.

  •••

  Night was now here. The low glow of the bonfire pulsed just a few feet away. Firefly had pulled the beds out from the cabins, abandoning the mattresses and breaking down their frames.

  When there were no more beds, he went back for the mattresses.

  And when there were no more mattresses, he burned all the tables in the mess hall. Then all the canoes and their paddles.

  After our suitcases and our clothes were gone, he pried the shutters from the cabin windows and unscrewed the front door from cabin three.

  I was alone. Utterly alone.

  Pulling out the penlight and clicking it on, I came upon an underlined section in the book: The dominant primordial beast was strong in Buck, and under the fierce conditions of trail life it grew and grew. Yet it was a secret growth. His newborn cunning gave him poise and control.

  The light started to flicker and fade.

  The batteries were dying.

  Great. Now I can’t even read.

  I swatted my palm against the penlight in hopes of rejiggering a little battery juice, but the intensity of the beam only dimmed.

  The fading light struck the front row of logs in the amphitheater.

  Something seized my attention.

  I had to squint, but just on the other side of my cage, in the front row, I spotted a tiny heart carved into the log. I’d seen that carving before. A spear pierced through the superior vena cava. The spearhead poked out from the etched muscle’s bottom chamber, a single droplet of blood dribbling off the tip.

  Stretching across the left ventricle, it read:

  SULLY.

  Across the right:

  SPENCE.

  Just before the batteries died completely, I saw wrapped around the whole heart the word:

  FOREVER.

  DAY SIX: 0600 HOURS

  amp Cannibal received one heck of a wake-up call this morning.

  A camp-wide chorus of ear-piercing shrieks peeled through the woods.

  What the heck is going on out there?

  Sporkboy stumbled into the amphitheater wearing nothing but his boxers. Several leaves clung to his skin. He frantically scratched at his chest as he raced by.

  “Aaaaaargh…”

  Sporkboy tripped on a log and took a header, tumbling toward the fire pit. He skidded face-first across the ground before grinding to a halt in front of my cage. He lifted his head up and found me staring. “What’s happening to meeeeeeee…?”

  I got a good look-see at the leaves wallpapering his body. Each was divided into three separate almond-shaped leaflets.

  How does that rhyme go again?

  Leaves of three, leave them be!

  Red splotches of swollen skin had cropped up along his upper chest and neck. All along his arms. His face. He moaned low as he picked himself up and bolted out of the amphitheater, scratching at his chest as he went. His voice reverberated the farther he ran down the path, quickly cutting itself off with a splash.

  Compass was next, pink patches of poisonous oil stains scattered all over his arms and legs. He raced through the amphitheater, a poison sumac leaf clinging to his forehead.

  “Make it stop, make it stop, make it stop.” Compass clawed at his skin as he rushed for the soothing waters of Lake Wendigo.

  Peashooter stormed into the amphitheater in his boxers, the tri-cornered imprint of poison ivy sprawled across his chest.

  “I don’t know how,” he seethed. “But I know this was you. You’re gonna eat ivy until you choke!”

  The word choke echoed through the trees.

  Somebody had tucked the Tribe in with a blanket of itch-inducing ivy. I couldn’t help but grin, the warmth of the sun spreading over my face.

  •••

  Cannibals groggily filed into the amphitheater and took their place along the logs, greeted by a tribe of pink ghosts. Capone nearly buckled over at the sight, doing his best impression of a donkey having an epileptic fit—“Heehawheehawheehaw!”

  Truth be told, it was hard not to laugh at the sight of Peashooter, Compass, Sporkboy—even Yardstick—completely slathered in calamine lotion, head to toe.

  Just looking at each of them, I could read the thoughts racing through their minds—Whatever you do, just don’t scratch, don’t scratch, don’t scratch.

  Yardstick busied himself by hanging a new banner over my cage. It read:

  CLAW AND FANG 101

  He glanced down at me—and winked. I suddenly realized that tricky son of a gun sure seemed a lot less itchy than the rest, even if he was painted pink.

  “Pretty crafty payback,” I whispered. “Was it you?”

  “Nope,” he uttered in a low tone. “And I’m not taking the fall for it, either.”

  Professor Peashooter emptied his lungs into George’s whistle as he paced before the simmering fire pit. His skin was caked in dried calamine. When his muscles tensed, the coating cracked, sending a flurry of pink flakes to the ground.

  “Listen up,” he announced. “We will
bring last night’s culprit to justice. Until then, we must—”

  “Seems pretty clear to everybody here that it was him,” a Pepto-complexioned Compass said, pointing at me. “So let’s string him up already!”

  “And how exactly did I do all this?” I leaned back against the bars of my cage. “I hate to state the obvious here, but I’ve been indisposed these last couple of days.”

  Sporkboy had been frantically scratching at his belly with both hands. Pink streaks of his fingernails raked over the slope of his torso. He paused long enough to point at Klepto. “I saw him wandering around the archery range yesterday. There’s a whole bunch of poison ivy back there. He could’ve done it!”

  “Whoa, whoa…” Klepto held his hands up. “I didn’t do it.”

  “That’s what you said about stealing Firefly’s matches,” Sporkboy chimed in.

  Hearing his name, Firefly stood at attention and shouted—“Keep the bonfire burning at all times!”

  “I swear it wasn’t!” Klepto backed up, making sure no one was behind him.

  “He’s lying,” Sporkboy insisted. “I can just tell. Look at him!”

  “It was the Rat,” Compass said. “He’s the root of all our problems.”

  “Blame me all you want, Compass,” I answered back. “But if you ask me, it sure sounds like you guys are having a hard time managing your own membership.”

  “Enough,” Peashooter said—while, simmering at the back of his gray eyes, his thoughts were obvious: Don’t scratch, don’t scratch, don’t scratch, don’t scratch.

  “If you can’t keep your own house in order, Peashooter, how can you—?”

  “Enough!” Peashooter shouted, silencing all cross-talk. “We cannot let some subversive element impede our plans. We must continue with our training—”

  “More marching in circles?” Capone had heard enough. “Count me out.”

  “It’s time we educated ourselves. You’ll be instructed by our tribal faculty.”

  Peashooter nodded to Compass. “Science, chemistry, and explosives.”

  He pointed to Yardstick. “Engineering and weapon assemblage.”

  To Sporkboy. “Home Ec.”

  “You guys are our teachers now?” Capone asked. “School’s out!”

  “Class is always in session.”

  “Is this supposed to be summer school or summer camp?

  A wave of dissent washed over the amphitheater.

  Tides were turning, I could tell.

  Just in time.

  “Look at what the Tribe has done for you.” Peashooter was having a difficult time maintaining his composure. “Haven’t you been able to do whatever you want out here? To eat what you want?”

  “What food?” Capone asked. “There isn’t anything left!”

  The Piranhas gnashed their teeth at the air—

  “Nofoodwhatarewegonnaeatnowwearestarvingwhatarewegonnaeat?”

  “We’ve got no food,” Capone continued. “We don’t have anywhere to sleep because Mr. Pyro over there burned all of our beds….”

  Firefly flung a pillow onto the fire, stoking its meager flames. “Gotta feed the flames! Gotta feed the flames!”

  “We’re hungry,” Capone kept going. “We’re cold…”

  “And we’re homesick,” Charles said out of the blue.

  The word spread amongst the Piranhas, drifting from one mouth to the next—“Homesickhomesickhomesickhomesickhomesickhomesick.”

  Peashooter wasn’t hearing it. “Food is easy to find. But what about your freedom? Who gave that back to you? I did! You’re in charge of yourselves for once and for all—thanks to me!”

  “Only Peashooter’s a little bit more in charge than the rest of you,” I piped up.

  Capone turned to face me in my cage. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It’s from a book.”

  “Great.” Capone rolled his eyes. “Another book.”

  “Don’t listen to him,” Peashooter shouted. “He’s trying to confuse you.”

  “Remember George and his little poop therapy sessions?” I asked the crowd. “Remember how George said he wasn’t in charge? How’s Peashooter any different?”

  “That’s enough!”

  “Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it!”

  “You think you can use Thoreau against me?”

  To the camp, I said, “Peashooter promises you the world, but then suddenly there’s a pop quiz!”

  “This is for the birds.” Capone got up from his log and marched toward the fire pit. “I’m sick of listening to all this crap. This place is worse than it was before.”

  Getting straight into Peashooter’s face, Capone asked, “What if we don’t want to go to your stupid class anymore?”

  Peashooter stared back with his cold gray eyes. “Nobody’s forcing you.”

  Capone grinned. His braces glowed orange in the weak firelight, like molten train tracks. He leaned even farther into Peashooter’s face.

  He completely failed to notice Compass standing behind him.

  “Capone!” I yelled.

  Too late. Compass kicked Capone in the soft joint of his left leg. He landed on his knees in front of Peashooter. “Hold him down.”

  Sporkboy and Compass each grabbed an arm and held Capone in place.

  “Let go of me.” Capone struggled to free himself.

  “You’ve got two choices,” Peashooter said. “Option A—kneel. Or Option B…”

  “…I punch you in the face?”

  Peashooter pulled out a pair of pliers from his back pocket.

  “Hold really still.”

  Peashooter opened and closed the rusty metal pincers. The campers all watched as he pinched Capone’s cheeks with his free hand and squeezed.

  “Stop,” Capone managed to mutter through his smushed mouth.

  “Ssssssh…” Peashooter sealed his pliers around the top steel bracket fastened to Capone’s central incisor. “I need to concentrate.”

  Capone’s eyes widened. His sweat glistened in the light of the fire.

  “This may hurt a bit….”

  The trees shuddered with Capone’s screams.

  Peashooter raised the pliers above his head. They held onto a single bracket, a knot of crooked wire snaking out.

  “One down.” Peashooter exhaled. “Nineteen more to go….”

  Capone squealed. The shrill pitch caused Peashooter to pull back and pause.

  “Is there something you would like to say?” Peashooter asked, still holding Capone by his mouth.

  Capone quickly nodded, red drool dribbling down his chin. “You’re the king,” he managed to sputter between his staccato inhales.

  “What’s that?” Peashooter cupped his hand to his ear and leaned in closer.

  “You’re the king, you’re the king, you’re the king!”

  Peashooter motioned for Sporkboy and Compass to let Capone go. He landed next to my cage, reduced to a blubbering bundle.

  “Put him with the counselors.” Peashooter wiped off his pliers before regarding the rest of the amphitheater. “So…where were we?”

  Nobody said a word.

  “Ah, yes. Time to do away with those who seek to undermine our Tribe.”

  DAY SIX: 1600 HOURS

  eashooter was now perched atop a lifeguard chair that had been dragged in from the shores of Lake Wendigo.

  Perfect, I thought. Peashooter has his own throne now.

  In his hand, he tightly gripped a handmade gavel—the empty shell of a snapping turtle tied around the end of a gardening trowel.

  Yardstick and Compass stood at either side of his chair. Each brandished a gardening tool pilfered from the camp’s equipment shed. Compass had a telescoping tree-branch pruner. Yardstick carried some kind of aerator
with four separately spinning blades for piercing the soil.

  Or human flesh.

  I tried making eye contact with Yardstick as Sporkboy prodded me before the fire pit, but he wouldn’t look at me.

  I didn’t like the looks of this.

  The bonfire was blazing once more, compliments of Firefly. There wouldn’t be anything left of the camp for Firefly to burn at the rate he was going.

  My sunburned compatriots flinched as Peashooter hammered the snapping turtle’s shell against the armrest of his chair—bang, bang, bang. To be honest, everybody had been acting pretty jumpy ever since Capone disappeared.

  “We have called you all here,” Peashooter announced, “to put Mr. Spencer Pendleton on trial.”

  This was news to me. “On what charges?”

  “Treason. You have betrayed your Tribe. We follow the Law of Claw and Fang and you have broken it with your disloyalty!”

  “The law will never make men free,” I said, quoting Thoreau. “It is men who have got to make the law free.”

  “Silence!” Peashooter shouted. I could tell I was under his skin like a tick. “You will be judged by a jury of your fellow peers.”

  “How’s that supposed to be fair? Everybody here wants to kill me!”

  “If you prefer,” Compass suggested, “you could forgo a trial by jury and have the honorable judge Peashooter decide your fate. Bet that’d be one speedy trial.”

  I agreed. “I’ll take the jury, thanks.”

  “After much deliberation,” Peashooter announced, “it has been decided that select members of cabins three and four shall stand in for our jury.”

  I spun around and found my bunkmates all huddled together on their log. None of them would meet my eyes.

  “What kind of jury selection was that?” I cried. “You have to interview your jurors to make sure that they can be impartial. You can’t just pick and choose!”

  “Bring it up with your defense attorney.”

  “Who’s representing me?”

  “Any volunteers? Will one of you defend Pendleton?”

  Nobody.

  “Guess I’m representing myself.”

  “Let the record show that Mr. Pendleton refused counsel and—”